@samerfarha@mastodon.social
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samerfarha

@samerfarha@mastodon.social

I photograph, eat, and drink across DC; I'm obsessed with beer and Iceland; Íslandvinur; bon vivant. Measurements in metric unless noted.

Some hashtags: #iceland #reykjavik #washingtondc #photography #photos #arlingtonva #tootfinder

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baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

“The New Golden Age of Black and White Photography - Photography | PentaxForums.com”

If I had a massive surplus of funds (LOL) I’d absolutely buy myself a monochrome sensor camera. https://www.pentaxforums.com/articles/photography/new-golden-age-bw-photography.html

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@baldur if you’re on an iPhone, I’ve been using the lovely Argentum app for B&W photography. It has a half dozen filters modeled after famous B&W photographers’ style, and applies the filter in real time. It can also be set to save the original color image.

I like it so much, I set it as my action button.

samerfarha, to random
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

For my friends that have e-readers, what size is ideal? Do any of you own a Boox?

Trying to decide between a “phone” form factor (6.3" x 3.1"/6 oz) and a tablet (6.1" x 5.4"/7 oz). The former can fit in a pocket. Any advice?

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@stevenray I do use my iPad for Libby, but it’s super heavy (I have a 13” Pro from 2018). I want something smaller and lighter. The paperwhite seems to be a good size. The Boox Page is slightly wider than the paperwhite but about the same weight.

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@stevenray I am in love with physical cookbooks (which, wierdly, would be better electronic for searching and such). Everything else, I’m going ebook/audio book for. Not enough space to collect books!

_inside, to random
@_inside@mastodon.social avatar

I love how this is an app that's supposed to help people reduce their screen time, but it almost looks like a fictional app I would make to demo dark patterns 😅

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@_inside I installed it to test something out for a friend and it just gave me the heeby-jeebies.

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

If you have the right to vote in Iceland, then this might be of interest https://island.is/undirskriftalistar/1296970d-9dc4-4daf-938f-37c06b48bcd1

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@baldur 34.5k at the moment. Almost 10% of the country and, what, like 20% of the eligible voters?

stroughtonsmith, to random
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

Apple's latest move is the perfect showcase of why the App Store needed competition, and why regulation matters.

An App Store with game streaming services and support for emulators is a better App Store.

Apple is using this opportunity to find out why people might ever want to sideload or jailbreak, and head them off at the pass.

Now do virtualization and JIT, since those are easy, low hanging fruit

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith I’d love an iPad Pro where I could run a virtual macOS. Perfect for my home use case which is 80% iPad. Might even be good enough to use for work, at least on the road.

samerfarha, to random
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

This week has been rough and I needed some comfort food. Dad used to make arayes for us and, because I was a difficult child, I used to eat it with ketchup.

Homemade bread, homemade kefta and, not pictured, homemade ketchup.

The same arayes, but cut into three for easier eating, on a plate with a big red water bottle behind it

stroughtonsmith, to random
@stroughtonsmith@mastodon.social avatar

When's the last time you heard anybody mention 'Skype’? 😅

Show how a massively dominant product can just evaporate over a couple of years without anybody noticing

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@stroughtonsmith I used it this morning because it remains the most cost effective way to call my mom in Lebanon. She only has internet at home and even then, it’s not always reliable enough for FaceTime audio (never mind video) or WhatsApp audio.

stevenray, to ElectronicMusic
@stevenray@sfba.social avatar

Y'all, I'm selling my Gentle Wham percussion synth. Just put it up on Reverb. Here's the listing in case you might be interested. It's in mint condition. 🙂
https://rvrb.io/2020-present-gentl-q743r5

@synths

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@stevenray is it called that because it’ll play “Wham Rap!” But without the exclamation mark?

…

I’ll see myself out!

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@stevenray “Wham Rap!” is a classic by Wham, released in the early 80s! Maybe it wasn’t as popular on this side of the pond.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wham_Rap!_(Enjoy_What_You_Do)

samerfarha, to random
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

This annoys me so much. The two trash cans are where the bus doors would be if the bus stopped where it is supposed to. Instead, busses have to stop short and then block the crosswalk. N. Wayne & Clarendon.

samerfarha, to random
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

I wonder if there would be the same level of vitriol against bike lanes if, instead of taking up part of the road, they took up part of a sidewalk. And I don’t mean make sidewalks smaller, I mean widen sidewalks and add a bike lane.

American road engineering is pretty dumb in thinking some paint will do, or even the dumb “protected” bike lane. Like just push the sidewalk out and put the bike lane on it. https://botsin.space/

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@nitpicking hmm? I’m saying expand the sidewalk into the road. Which is already owned by the public. And even though it’s the same result from the pov of a driver, the bike lane will be on the new portion of the sidewalk.

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@nitpicking drivers might hate it. But this American very much loves this idea. Narrower roads, slower speeds, safer bikers, safer everyone.

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

“Apple, Meta, and Google targeted by EU in DMA non-compliance investigations - The Verge”

Apple fans: “The EU must approve of Apple’s plans, otherwise Apple wouldn’t have announced them”

The EU: “Hang on a minute…” https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/25/24111232/european-commission-digital-markets-act-investigation

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@baldur this has been so utterly baffling to me. I know they all are based in the US and have a very US-centric view of the world, but they operate in so many countries and have enough money to hire good lawyers and advisors.

And yeah, the DMA is new and I bet there’s a line of thought that says give the absolute least and see what pushback you get, but some of this stuff looked bad to lay people like me!

olafurw, to random
@olafurw@mastodon.social avatar

Not this again.

This is not a memory efficiency thing!
WhatsApp is not storing the group size variable as an unsigned char. Because that only goes to 255.

It's just an int and there's a programmer that finds the number 256 to be neat.

How do I know? This is an old story. Current limit is 1024.

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@olafurw I was once in a meeting where some product person was trying to set some upper limits on certain items.

“What’s the maximum number of pictures in a slide show?”

Me: “infinity”

“That’s not a number!”

Me: “of course it is! ♾️”

“No, we need a number…”

Boss’s boss: “42”

Later: “what the hell?”
Him: “this product will never see the light of day”

And he was right!

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

Finally, a presidential candidate here in Iceland that I can vote for. Exactly the right sort of expertise and experience. That he’s half of one of Iceland’s major power couples doesn’t hurt either.

“Baldur Þórhallsson is running for president” https://www.ruv.is/english/2024-03-20-baldur-thorhallsson-is-running-for-president-407953

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@baldur hilariously, every time an english language article on him just references him as Baldur in the headline, my first thought was whether you were running for president!

samerfarha, to random
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

Someone pinged me at work today to ask if I remember writing some code to do a certain thing. I barely remembered, but I had (in 2003!)

The output from this is still a product and is still being used. Presumably, but not clearly, not from my code.

An attempt to figure out where it is coming from shows it arriving from a system that was decommissioned a decade ago.

The only possible explanation is that we have a ghost. Working with ghost software. On a ghost system. In a ghostly data center.

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

If this is still going from my code, well, I would be absolutely chuffed that something I wrote has been running for over 20 years!

But all the possible servers where it could have been running are long gone.

samerfarha, to Iceland
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

Live from Iceland: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEMz0hwyfFs

stevenray, to random
@stevenray@sfba.social avatar

Has anyone used Wise.com (maybe it used to be called TransferWise) for sending money overseas? Would you recommend it? Thanks!

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@stevenray I used it a fair bit when I did a five month stint in Iceland and was being paid to my normal US bank account. It was significantly cheaper than doing a bank transfer, and often faster. I still use it to send money from time to time.

They connect to your bank via a number of third parties, which is worrying, but I’ve never noticed any issues. The last time I changed phones, I had to do the set up with my bank again, and it was a pain, but money transferred fine after.

APBBlue, to random
@APBBlue@zirk.us avatar

Would Austria and the Czech Republic be a good place to visit for an upcoming big birthday that ends in a 0?

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@APBBlue I can highly, super highly, recommend Iceland. Copenhagen and Oslo, too, but man, Reykjavík has a hold on me.

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

Last week, instead of getting angry at all of the nonsense people were spouting about Apple and the EU and blurting out a series of angry toots, I decided to instead write a calm and measured explanation of how the EU works from a tech management perspective, with references.

"Facing reality, whether it’s about Apple or the EU, is a core requirement for good management"

https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/facing-reality-in-the-eu-and-tech/

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@baldur wonderful read! Thanks for writing this.

timbray, (edited ) to photography
@timbray@cosocial.ca avatar

Purchased a sort-of-exotic new lens, trying to learn how to use it, haven’t quite got there yet. But these are still kind of pretty.

samerfarha,
@samerfarha@mastodon.social avatar

@timbray what’s the lens, if you don’t mind sharing?

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